Netflix will discontinue its cheapest Canadian ad-free plan starting in the second quarter of 2024, making Canada one of the few countries along with the United Kingdom without a basic subscription.
The streaming platform made the announcement on the sidelines of the publication of its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2023 presented on Tuesday.
“The ad-supported package now represents 40% of all connections to Netflix in our ad-supported markets,” the company said, noting that this innovation allows it to expect “significant new revenue.” […] medium and long term.
This change will initially come into effect in Canada and the United Kingdom before expanding to other markets if the results are conclusive. However, the exact date of the change and its terms were not specified.
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The basic plan without ads, which costs $11.99, will therefore disappear in favor of the second plan without ads at $16.49 per month, the Standard plan. It is still possible to add new members to account sharing for $7.99.
A standard plan with advertising is already offered for $5.99 per month, a premium plan for $20.99, which allows viewing on more devices, the possibility of downloading and Ultra HD quality.
“We are committed to offering a range of prices and packages to satisfy as many people as possible, including very competitive base prices,” the company said in a letter to shareholders on Monday.
Canadian, Netflix guinea pigs
Over the years, the Canadian market has become something of a laboratory for Netflix, which likes to test new approaches there. Recall that in February 2023, Canada became one of the first countries in the world, along with Portugal, Spain and New Zealand, where Netflix restricted the sharing of its accounts between users.
A few months after this experience, the measure was expanded to other countries, including the United States.
Netflix ended its 2023 fiscal year with a net profit of $5.1 billion.
In Canada and the U.S., the company ended the year with 5.8 million more subscribers after ending 2022 with a loss of 919,000 subscribers.